AMD reveals new Zen 3 chips that look to overthrow Intel’s previous dominance

Ryzen from the ashes

For years AMD processors were known as the “budget” chip when it came to building a gaming PC. If you wanted to truly call yourself an enthusiast, you always went with the Intel chip because it was, by and large, the industry leader. Not content to be second fiddle, AMD set out to claw its way to the top of the processor market with its Zen architecture that launched in 2017.

Ever since, AMD’s processors have been slowly usurping Intel processors’ previous leads in nearly every benchmark. That trend looks to continue when AMD releases the 5000 series of Ryzen 3 chips next month.

During a half-hour stream today, AMD rattled off multiple wins for its new chips. With performance boosts against its own previous line as well as competitors’ while still using the same AM4 socket, the 5000 series is looking to be a beast of a processor line for both gamers and content creators.

Some of the highlights include a 2.8x efficiency bonus in performance per watt compared to the upcoming Intel i9-10900K chip and a 26% frame rate performance improvement over the Zen 2 3000 series at 1080p. In a moment that felt like it was stripped right out of Silicon Valley, AMD also revealed that the new Ryzen 9 5900x was the first processor to break a 600 score on the industry-standard Cinebench benchmarking tool.

Now, this could all be corporate peacocking, but it seems like AMD has finally pulled ahead of Intel’s processor offerings and has potential to be the dominant force in both gaming and workstation computers. The new line of chips will be on store “shelves” starting November 5.

There will be four chips released as part of the Zen 3 5000 series, and here are their specifications.

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (launching at $799)

• # of CPU Cores: 16
• # of Threads: 32
• Max Boost Clock: Up to 4.9GHz
• Base Clock: 3.4GHz
• Default TDP / TDP: 105W

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (launching at $549)

• # of CPU Cores: 12
• # of Threads: 24
• Max Boost Clock: Up to 4.8GHz
• Base Clock: 3.7GHz
• Default TDP / TDP: 105W

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (launching at $449)

• # of CPU Cores: 8
• # of Threads: 16
• Max Boost Clock: Up to 4.7GHz
• Base Clock: 3.8GHz
• Default TDP / TDP: 105W

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (launching at $299)

• # of CPU Cores: 6
• # of Threads: 12
• Max Boost Clock: Up to 4.6GHz
• Base Clock: 3.7GHz
• Default TDP / TDP: 65W

After the stream, I was talking with my friend and fellow community member TheBlondeBass about how it seems like we’re really hitting a new pace when it comes to PC component evolution.

Between AMD’s news and the announcement of the Nvidia 3000 series of graphics cards, the tech landscape is seemingly on an exponential rise in performance. It’s a wonderful time to be a PC gamer and we’ll continue to get a better look at the generation to come when AMD reveals the new RX 6000 series of video cards on October 30.